


a lover who looks at you like maybe you are magic

by aetherae



Category: Howl no Ugoku Shiro | Howl's Moving Castle, Tales of Vesperia
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fusion, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-05
Updated: 2018-02-05
Packaged: 2019-03-14 00:30:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13582200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aetherae/pseuds/aetherae
Summary: Yuri Lowell, cursed to live as an old man, meets the famed Witch of the Wastes, Estelle. You can guess the rest.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> oh my god this is so self-indulgent, i'm sort of sorry, but i mean i'm also posting this here so! am i really!! SO HERE IT IS, MY SELF-INDULGENT HOWL'S MOVING CASTLE YURI/ESTELLE AU. anyways like all my fics that have been posted on tumblr, this is a MESS of collected snippets more or less. will i ever write the full story? debatable tbh. until then i'm posting what i have in as chronological an order as possible. any new additions will just be added as is. if i ever finish it i'll. idk. repost it with everything set chronologically i guess. SHRUGS. anyways, please enjoy!!

There are a lot of rumors about Estelle and her moving castle of a home. That she walks the Wastes because she has nowhere else to go. That she swallowed a shooting star for her namesake, her power. That she eats men’s hearts to replace the one she lost from committing such an act.

Yuri has no idea if any of them are true, but seeing her face light up at the breakfast he made for the three (four if you count the talking fire) meager residents of the castle, he finds it hard to think she’s the subject of them all.

She doesn’t know how to cook apparently, and from the way Karol eagerly stuffs his face with bacon and eggs, Yuri figures this is probably the first real meal he’s had in ages. For all his blustering and bluffing, Raven eats up the eggshells and scraps without a word of complaint, although how a fire manages to digest anything is beyond Yuri. Magic, apparently.

Of course, the fact that he’s using wrinkled hands to cut into his meal and feed his creaking, aged body is all beyond him, too. Magic, and all that.

He’s interrupted from his thoughts by a long, content sigh, and he looks over to see Estelle’s closed eyes as she drinks from the cup of tea he made her. Before he can drop his gaze back to his meal, Estelle opens her eyes to look at him, mouth hidden by her cup until she finishes one last sip. She lowers the cup from her mouth and smiles softly.

“Thank you, Yuri. I can’t remember the last time I had such a lovely cup of tea.”

“Nah, it’s no big deal,” he shrugs, intently diving back into his meal. As his heart skips a beat in his chest, he knows it’s not just his suddenly aged body that’s making his chest so tight.

Estelle laughs lightly, and that’s the greatest magic of all.


	2. Chapter 2

She likes watching him clean, he’s noticed.

With all the various books and artifacts and magical knick-knacks strewn about (along with a fancily scrawled message on her bed’s headboard with about a dozen darts thrown into it), Yuri’s long since given up on her room, but the rest of the castle’s free game. He’s freed just about every corner of the place from cobwebs, and Raven’s fireplace doesn’t have a speck of ash lingering on its stone. After seeing Yuri with his broom and rolled up sleeves, Karol made a dash for his own room, locking the door to “save his important stuff” before he had a chance to clean it out.

It was smart of him, to be honest. Whether the moving castle just collects stuff along the way or Estelle’s just _that_ much of a hoarder, he doesn’t know, but he has half a mind to toss every non-essential out.

He’s considering just that, looking at all the plates and silverware they have in the kitchen and wondering if they really need it, when he sees Estelle, sitting at the table with her head propped up in her hands.

“You look like you’re having fun.”

“I am,” she says easily, and from the lilt in her voice, he can understand why so many of the rumors about her revolve around all the hearts she’s stolen, the favors she’s taken from so many unwitting citizens. It sounds like a tease.

But if he’s learned anything in all his time here about the elusive witch, it’s that Estelle is nothing but honest.

“If you have that much fun watching me clean,” he sighs, trying to still the shake in his hands as he sets a plate down, “you might wanna try cleaning yourself.”

She has the grace to look the slightest bit sheepish, but that doesn’t make her get up from her spot. “Well, that’s not what the fun part of this is.”

“Then what is? There can’t be much fun in watching an old man tidy up a house.”

“Just that it’s you.”

He looks up at her and her smiling face, the same as she almost always is. Honestly, it’s almost hard to catch Estelle in a bad mood. But he sees the look in her eyes, almost impossibly warm, as if she’s looking at something truly incredible, and it makes his heart lurch.

Yuri shakes his head, grabbing his broom to go back to sweeping the kitchen floor. With his back facing her now, he’s glad he can’t see the proof that old age does nothing to stop a person’s cheeks from flushing.

Estelle is nothing but honest.

He tries not to think about what that means.


	3. Chapter 3

“You can’t keep this up, y’know.”

Stretched over a chair, Estelle hardly hears Raven’s words over the sound of her shrinking feathers. Eyes screwed shut, she reels the magic back into herself, wills her wings back into arms, and before long, she looks down at human limbs instead of a bird’s.

Too long, if she’s being honest with herself though. Her return to human form took twenty seconds longer than it did last time, and she’s out of breath just from the transformation.

She tries not to think about it. Instead, she says easily, “You can’t know that.”

“I can, actually,” Raven drawls. His fire burns bright, but she can make out the shape of something else past his flames. She’s exhausted, after all; he must be able to feel it too.

“It’s only for a little longer.” That much isn’t a lie. She doesn’t think it is, at least. “I’m sorry for putting you through this, Raven.”

“You sure are tryin’ to work this old man to death,” he says with a sigh, but she can hear the concern. The flame sways lazily from the fireplace, and if fire could shrug, Estelle thinks this is what it would look like. “Just how much longer is ‘a little longer’?”

Closing her eyes, she thinks of Karol asleep in his room, no doubt a book or magic jewel tucked under his arm for later studying. Feeling the heat of the fire, she thinks of Raven and all his contented talking.

Standing up, she walks to the nearby cot and pushes back the curtain to see Yuri, sound asleep and not a day older than when she first met him. Fanned against the pillow, his hair looks just like the night sky. He rarely looks so at peace during the day, and she treasures his sleeping face all the more.

Closing the curtain, she remembers all the battles she’s seen, all the warships she’s had to tear down from the sky.

“Until we’re safe. Just until then.”

But as long as the others are okay, she’ll take it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> btw this is another old work. i started writing this back in.... 2015 probably? when will i ever finish my wip.


End file.
